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Peter D. Stahl Earns UW Faculty Award for Internationalization

April 23, 2012 — Peter D. Stahl learned the value of international relations
from his grandfather, a Spaniard who worked his way to the New World by rolling
cigars in Havana in exchange for a ticket.

Stahl, a professor of soil ecology and director of the
Wyoming Restoration and Reclamation Center, has earned the University of
Wyoming's 2012 Faculty Award for Internationalization. The award was
established in 2001 by the UW International Board of Advisers to recognize
excellence in promoting international activities at UW.

Putting this knowledge into action has been a hallmark of
Stahl's career, as he has pursued research that has had real-world consequences
for people across Wyoming and the globe, and expanded opportunities for Wyoming
students to study abroad.

Through his research to improve technologies for land
reclamation and ecosystem restoration in sagebrush steppe ecosystems, Stahl has
developed collaborative relationships with colleagues worldwide.

Working with
colleagues from the Czech Republic, he has examined recovery of soil organisms
on reclaimed surface coal mines in Wyoming, Canada, Australia, Germany and the
Czech Republic. He has developed, with colleagues from UW and Peabody Energy,
an international exchange program to train students from Mongolia and Wyoming
in the latest technologies and management practices in reclamation and
restoration. Stahl and other UW scientists are developing a program on
international watershed hydrology and ecosystem restoration science with
faculty from Universidad del Valle de Guatemala.

Anne Alexander, director of International Programs at UW,
says Stahl's most outstanding international work is a collaborative partnership
he has developed with Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, Nepal. She says the
partnership began as a memorandum of understanding that has grown into a model
program of international cooperation.

"Through this program, the number of Nepalese students at UW
has grown to the second-largest international student population on campus,"
Alexander says. "The research that Dr. Stahl has coordinated with his
colleagues in Kathmandu has led to several major publications, visiting scholar
exchanges and results that will improve reclamation practices across several
continents, including in two similarly situated mountain regions, Nepal and
Wyoming."

Stahl's scientific contributions in soil microbiology and
restoration are rivaled only by the major impact he has had on
internationalization at UW. His colleagues in the United States and abroad
praise him both as a first-rate scientist and a true diplomat and ambassador of
Wyoming.

"He serves as a role model for UW faculty, staff and
students in his pursuit of solutions to common global problems," Alexander says.

Stahl joined the UW faculty in 2000. He received a B.S.
(1978) in agriculture from Oklahoma State University, and M.S. (1982) and Ph.D.
(1989) degrees in botany from UW.